


all is calm

by SongOfWizardry



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Late Night Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:35:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28264017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongOfWizardry/pseuds/SongOfWizardry
Summary: It's quiet, it's late, and Caleb's reading is interrupted by Yasha. Featuring soft conversations and too many descriptions of lights.
Relationships: Caleb Widogast & Yasha
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	all is calm

Between the twinkling lights on the tree, the lights strung up around the curtains, and the candles still burning on the mantlepiece, Caleb doesn’t need his dancing lights to read by. He’s sat on an armchair, legs pulled up under him, Frumpkin dozing on his lap, and his book carefully balanced so as not to disturb the cat. It’s quiet, and he can hear his own breathing, and Frumpkin, and the quiet _swish_ every time he turns the page. He thinks he could even hear the soft rustling of the pine needles, if he concentrates.

He likes the stillness. It doesn’t come to him very often, quiet outside and inside his head, and he reads slower than he usually would, savouring it.

It’s easy to pick up the footsteps in the silence. He pauses, and the immediate instinct to jump to his feet, pull out his component pouch, is still there, but it fades just as quickly as it came. It can only be one of the Nein in the house. He lifts his head and cranes his neck to see who’s approaching.

A few moments later, Yasha steps into the room, blinking, a shawl draped over her shoulders, her long hair half-undone from its usual braids. She pauses in the doorway, raising a hand to stifle a yawn. “Oh, Caleb. You’re here.”

He has to smile, a little, at her statement of the obvious. “I am. I did not know you were still awake.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” she says, still blinking, looking around the room. “What about you?” He watches as she pulls the shawl closer and settles down on the floor.

“Ja, likewise,” Caleb says, although that’s not strictly true—he has yet to try sleeping. “Also, this is just a good… atmosphere for reading, I think.” _I wanted to preserve it_ , is what he means but does not say, because all of this – the lights and the quiet and the warm weight of Frumpkin on him and the unusual calm of his own mind and the knowledge that his friends are alive and safe and sleeping – feels perfect and beautiful and fragile. He thinks, briefly, of Blumenthal, of catching snowflakes on the tip of his nose and his tongue while his Father laughed— _fragile_ is the right word.

“It is pretty, isn’t it?” Yasha says, pulling him suddenly out of memory.

Caleb cannot help the smile. “It is. Jester has outdone herself, as always.” If he tips his head to the side, he can make out the shape of a subtle dick or two in the way she’s draped the tinsel. The whole affair has been ridiculous, and beautiful, and extremely Jester.

“How are you feeling about… well, about all of this?”

Caleb blinks, confused. Yasha is staring at him, and he wonders what he’s missed. “How do I feel about, what, exactly? Jester’s decoration?”

“Noooo, I mean… you know.” The way Yasha rolls the _o_ s on her tongue is familiar to Caleb now, endearing, her voice heavier with sleep. “Winter’s Crest. The uh, the food, and the lights, and all that. Celebrating it here. This, you know.” She pauses, pulls one hand out from under the shawl to gesture at the room around them. “This uh, this family.”

She only hesitates for a second before the word _family_. Caleb considers that, considers how it feels almost _natural_ to call themselves that now, how it doesn’t make him nauseous with a mixture of guilt and shame and fear. _We have come far, haven’t we?_ he thinks.

Caleb looks at the tree, squints slightly so the lights blur in his vision, out of focus, as he thinks about the words. “Ja, well, it certainly beats doing it alone, and being miserable, or cold, or lonely, and all that.” That feels like an understatement, so he turns away from the tree, meets Yasha’s gaze, and adds, softly, “This feels good.”

It still feels slightly blasphemous to say that. But there—he has said it anyway.

“Yeah,” says Yasha, nodding. She doesn’t contribute anything else, and for a long moment, they sit watching each other by the dim lights, listening to the silence. Yasha yawns once more. Frumpkin makes a soft sound in his sleep, and Caleb instinctively scratches at his head.

A few moments more, and then Caleb says, carefully, “I could ask you the same question, I think.”

“Yeah.” Yasha shrugs, and is quiet. Caleb waits. She looks away for a moment, and Caleb watches her eyes go round the room, taking it all in, until they finally settle back on him. “I like it here, I think.”

The way she says it – quiet, utterly convinced – makes Caleb smile, and she gives him one of her half-smiles in return, and he says, “Ja, so do I.”

He means it, too.

**Author's Note:**

> is this in-canon? is this some vague AU? who knows! all I know is, there are trees and lights and decorations and it's an excuse to write some vaguely-christmas-themed fluff. this was written while listening to [this version of Stille Nacht.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGA6djLsDgs&ab_channel=BrentPostlethwaite)
> 
> happy holidays, stay safe, stay home, and may your nights be full of light.
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](https://songofwizardry.tumblr.com/), where I yell about critical role and various other things.


End file.
